


i'll believe the world is flat if only you'll come home

by superstarrgirl



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (maniacal laughter), Angst, Death, M/M, Obviously because i never write anything else, louis appears for like half a second and liam and harry don't have much either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarrgirl/pseuds/superstarrgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Niall leaves, Zayn forgets to lock the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll believe the world is flat if only you'll come home

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiiiiiiiii. yeah. its bad. its actually really bad. um. enjoy? niall….well, niall is going to hate me if he ever finds these.
> 
> Inspiration from 'If You Ever Come Back' by The Script

When Niall and Zayn first started dating, they were polar opposites.

Niall left the door unlocked at night, always saying he forgot. Zayn always checked to make sure the door was locked, knew every night that it wasn’t going to be. The first few times, he got angry with Niall, asked if Niall wanted them to be robbed. Niall had only laughed, kissed Zayn and told him that he knew Zayn would check the lock, would always make sure that his boyfriend was safe.

Niall loved the summer, loved to sit at the beach even though he got burnt easily, loved the sun and the simplicity. Zayn was more partial to winter, to staying inside while it was snowing and cuddling on the couch, loved wrapping himself in layer after layer. Winter was peace, summer was craze. Winter was everything Zayn was, summer became Niall. 

The idea of Niall’s perfect date was going out to a club and getting totally wasted, dancing the night away and not caring any bit about what other people thought. Zayn preferred a quiet dinner at a fancy restaurant, preferred walking the silent streets and kissing under streetlights and whispering sweet nothings in the curve of Niall’s neck. 

Niall had to constantly be surrounded by people, always had Louis or Liam or Harry next to him, always had his fingers entwined with Zayn but never really paying him too much attention. Niall loved chatter. Zayn enjoyed silence, peace, quiet and solidarity. Sure, he liked Louis and Liam and Harry plenty, but he’d much rather be on the worn couch in the living room, reading, with Niall curled on his chest like a puppy.

They’re total opposites, Niall and Zayn, but somehow they make it work.

They grow into each other, twisting around one another like vines. Louis jokes that it’s becoming difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Zayn grows to love the heat of summer; Niall grows to care for the beauty of winter, the snowflakes that get caught on his eyelashes. Niall stops partying every weekend, starts to read books that Zayn leaves lying around. He bookmarks his favorite quotes, underlines passages he feels entirely necessary to every day life, scribbles notes in the margins for Zayn to find later. Zayn actually finds himself enjoying getting drunk every once in a while, stops caring what people think of him and just lets himself enjoy Niall. 

But Zayn, every night, still checks the lock on the door, and every night, like clockwork, the door is open. So he locks it – they don’t want to get robbed.

-

When Niall leaves, Zayn forgets to lock the door.

- 

When Niall leaves, Zayn sits on the couch and stares at nothing but empty spaces, feels the hook of Niall’s fingers in his, grabs desperately for a body that isn’t there anymore, that walked out that door when everything fell to pieces, when Zayn stopped saying ‘I love you’ and started saying ‘I’m busy, go away.’ 

Niall doesn’t say goodbye, Niall gets up one morning and walks out the door with a bag Zayn didn’t know he had packed, and when Zayn gets up that morning to a cold right-hand-side of the bed and a guitar-less apartment, he doesn’t even react. Niall’s bluffing, has to be bluffing, will be home any minute. 

Zayn realizes when he goes to sleep without checking the lock that he’s afraid that Niall won’t come home. 

(He doesn’t.)

-

Zayn spends nights wandering the apartment, digging in the floors and the walls and the cracks and crevices to try and find any part of Niall that got left behind. But he knows Niall, knows that Niall knows how to clean up messes and make it seem like he was never there. Knows Niall learnt it when he left home in Ireland, knows Niall learnt how to disappear the first time his father struck him across the cheek with a broken beer bottle. 

He never finds a part of Niall, finds only himself, finds the crack in the headboard he had forgotten even existed after their first fight, full of sharp tongues and biting words, and how Niall had fucked Zayn so hard Zayn had seen stars. 

He finds words weaved into his clothes like a pattern – the first time he had said _I love you_ , the first time he had said _Niall, enough, I’m too tired._ He finds parts of his soul left in pockets of jeans, tucked away by Niall like little rays of sunshine, promises that were meant to be kept.

He finds himself, but he doesn’t find Niall. 

-

Zayn wonders, when he throws plate after plate against the wall and watches as the porcelain cracks, watches the ceramic tumble and split across the floor, wonders when he let the world fall apart.

-

Harry turns up at the door to the apartment and Zayn’s hand is split open from where he cut it on a knife, trying to make Niall’s favorite dinner – beef stew with baked potatoes and carrots and celery – and Harry appears in the kitchen.

“He’ll be home soon, can you grab two bowls?” Zayn asks of Harry, adding in some pepper and salt to give the stew a bit of a kick.

“Zayn.” Harry says very quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

“Bowls, Harry.” Zayn repeats firmly, voice leaving no room for question. Harry hesitates a moment and then complies, grabbing two of the remaining three bowls that weren’t broken when Zayn hurled them against the wall and slides them to Zayn, who begins ladling the stew in, making sure to add extra into one. Niall will want extras, but Zayn will beat him to it.

“Zayn.” Harry begins once again, but Zayn cuts across him.

“He’ll be home any minute, he’s going to walk through that door and we’re going to have a nice dinner and I’m going to ask him to marry me and you’re going to leave. Right now.” 

Harry looks like he wants to say something else, but Zayn persists, pointing at the door with the soupspoon, and Harry, after a sad glance, leaves. 

Zayn waits for two hours for Niall to come home. 

He doesn’t.

Zayn cries.

-

Zayn finds the picture under the mattress on Niall’s side, tucked and bent and a little boxed around the edges. It’s the five of them together in the snow, arms around each other, Niall smiling and laughing at something Louis had said and Zayn staring at Niall like he radiates sunlight.

Zayn sits on the still-made side of the bed, cradles the photograph in his hands like glass, tries to remember the last time he told Niall he loved him. 

When he can’t, Zayn starts to scream until he can’t anymore.

-

Louis is there the next day, crawling into the space next to Zayn – not the made side, because that is Niall’s side and nobody touches Niall’s side – and curling his head on Zayn’s tummy. 

They lie together, chests rising and falling rhythmically. Louis traces words onto Zayn’s thigh – _love, truth, hello, goodbye, forever, please_. 

Finally, Louis whispers, “you deserve to be happy.”

Zayn breaks down in tears because no, he doesn’t, he hurt Niall, he left Niall, he never made sure Niall knew how much Zayn _loved_ him. 

-

It’s Liam’s idea, and nobody ever says no to Liam, so Zayn finds himself in a Toyota driving to a location he doesn’t want to visit. He had tried to say no, but Liam’s persistent, and so is Louis, and Louis thinks it’s a good idea.

He’s led somewhere, a large hand on his elbow as though as a reminder not to run, rain runs down his hair and back and spine and _he doesn’t want to be here why is Liam taking him here he wants to go home_.

The stone is small, rising out of the ground, demanding attention yet silent. Zayn takes one look at it and looks away, the engraving imprinting itself on his eyelids. “Take me home.” He says to Liam dangerously, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides.

“Zayn, it’ll be good for you.” Liam tries.

“Take. Me. Home.”

“Zayn –" Before either of them is really sure what’s going on, Zayn’s fist is connecting with Liam’s face, there’s a splash of liquid against his knuckles, Zayn’s turning and running flat-footed, his heart crashing against his ribcage.

He doesn’t see the car, doesn’t hear the horn, doesn’t hear Liam’s shout of _Zayn please stop!_ He doesn’t feel the impact in his side, the being knocked sideways and the wind being ripped from his lungs. All he feels is floating, freedom, peace.

All he sees, all that fills his vision, laying on that concrete, is Niall, who’s laughing, and Zayn’s laughing, and he’s where he finally belongs.

-

He never locks the door again.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
